Distracted driving due to manual interaction with a cellular phone is a growing societal issue. There is an effort to curb the use of cell phones while driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has issued guidelines for automotive infotainment systems in an effort to minimize distractions. An example of this is set forth in “Visual-Manual NHTSA Driver Distraction Guidelines for In-Vehicle Device” by the National Traffic Safety Administration. Docket No. NHTSA-2010-0053, Feb. 16, 2012. Within these guidelines, NHTSA is proposing a requirement for cell phones to implement a method to lock out certain tasks while driving. At the international level, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) initiated a working group to identify any actions that can be taken to address distracted driving.
There are currently several apps available to consumers that will restrict cell phone usage while driving. These apps often require hardware to be installed on the vehicle. Others require the phone to monitor its own speed via global positioning satellite (GPS) information and automatically shut down the phone while traveling at significant speeds. These apps may be popular but not useful due to the voluntary nature of these apps and the inability to discern between a driver and passenger.